#not to clog every character tag

[kyouka-supremacy]

Tbh the fact that these Harukawa Beast illustrations exist and these are the only images of them we ever got is a crime against humanity

[statictwoo]

This post got me thinking about how much the characters on M*A*S*H would actually be swearing outside of TV censors.

I think Trapper and Klinger swear like sailors all the time, in a casual, blue collar kind of way. They wouldn’t be out of place among the guys who smoke under the window of my apartment. The same goes for Henry, but because of his kids, he’s in the habit of saying things like “fiddlesticks,” and when he slips up, Hawkeye and Trapper mercilessly make fun of him for it.

All of Colonel Potter’s creative attempts at not saying “bullshit” are genuine. He just talks like that. HOWEVER I wouldn’t say that he doesn’t swear, it’s just that if he does, you know you’re in big trouble.

Hawkeye swears, not as much as some of the others, and when he does, it can be more serious. But I do think that he doesn’t speak in NEARLY as many euphemisms as we see. He’s definitely more direct than that.

Radar doesn’t swear, ever. He said “fuck” once, and everyone within earshot went “OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” which was so embarrassing that he never did it again.

Frank doesn’t swear either. He’s tried it a few times but just ends up sounding like a kid trying out all his newfound Bad Words where his parents can’t hear. It sounds and feels unnatural, so eventually he just gives up.

Margaret usually has enough discipline not to swear, but she used to when she was younger, and still does when she gets angry. She loosens up as time goes on and shocks people when she swears as naturally as she breathes.

Mulcahy. . .tries not to. I’d say he swears about as often as he punches people, maybe a little more. I think his childhood was full of profanity, and part of the reason why he doesn’t swear is that he doesn’t want to sound like his parents.

BJ swears, but only when he’s angry. It’s similar to Colonel Potter except he doesn’t have an arsenal of fun alternatives to every expletive. And whereas I think Potter sometimes uses a genuine “fucking” strategically to get his point across, there isn’t any strategy involved in it with BJ.

Charles absolutely does not swear, ever! He’s a Winchester and Winchesters do not swear, they utter profanities! And he does not utter profanities, either! Except that he does, when he’s sufficiently annoyed. And by the way, Winchesters DO swear. Every Winchester swears more than Charles.

Feel free to add on or disagree in the notes, and give me your opinions on the characters I didn’t get to! I love to talk <33

[celtrist]

I just vented out a whole rant about how aromantisim is treated within Hazbin/helluva. I'm not really sure if I should post it for multiple reasons, one of which being I don't want anyone to feel targeted about it or take it the wrong way (like I honestly dont have beef with Al shippers. Gripes, but no beef as I also ship him on occasion).

There was just a sudden burst of frustration I had with it that I think was in part just came from built up frustration from other things. There's things I'd like to have out there, but I don't really think it'd get far or, again, be just taken the wrong way. I don't see a point in posting if people are gonna ignore it, plus it wouldn't change how things are now. If anyone has any thoughts or are curious let me know, but I don't wanna make anyone feel like shit or put a pointless rant out there no one wanted to see. I also wanna keep rants to a minimum as I know people aren't always into that sort of stuff, especially if you don't follow someone for that and you just get an influx of posts of them complaining. And I still want to keep things relatively light hearted around here, at best maybe just some critiques on things here and there.

It's late, I'm on my phone when I should probably just sleep it off, so sleep it off I will.

[javierduffy]

ohh javieran … javieran post kieran’s death .., javier is a poor lonesome cowboy in america a long way from home with no more sweetheart to sit and talk with him ooohhh can anyone hear me ….

[divvy-div-art]

Bobek, the God of Dreams & Creativity

BOO! back from the dead

a friend requested that i draw one of the gods he designed for a D&D campaign he's running (which i play a cool elf journalist in), and since the design was so fun and i was given permission to take as many creative liberties as i wanted, i felt like i HAD to draw Bobek

Bobek really IS the God of Creativity cuz he cured my art block 🙏🙏

[evilrwbyfan]

murder drones headcanons

this is probably gonna be long sooo under the cut. Ok? ok… none of this is organized (there are categories but only 2)

some of these are based on canon but more than half are really just completely personal interpretations

first lets start with my sisters awesome headcanon

pillbabies are not as important as adult models, so them being used as defense weapons in dire situations is normal. just recode the baby lol

a drones transition from pillbaby to drone is very simple, there is no “in between” where they are tiny drone models, it goes pillbaby to adult model. mostly to preserve metal and oil, theres only so much of that to go around anymore. this is part of the reason why workers all look the same but ages vary so drastically. in the future though, i could imagine they implement a new system where “kid” and “teen” models are made just for better distinction and for fun. but that’d have to be pretty far in the future, probably whenever they’ve all finally dealt with the corpse spires and saved as much resources as possible

lizzy is a very observational and smart person but thats overshadowed by her popular girl act (lol)

doll took an interest in photography due to her father, she uses his camera and in a way its a coping mechanism (basically bonding with him spiritually)

workers prefer heat while disassemblys prefer the cold, this makes them perfect cuddle buddies but also causes the workers to be more attracted to the disassemblys which leads to more deaths

female model disassemblys have the worst time ever trying to sit down, those legs fucking suck

absolutely stealing this from seraphont but since workers were originally miners, they work like owls. Ok? shiny = gem = attracted = Ooooooo. YAY MORE WORKER DEATH BECAUSE DISASSEMBLYS ARE ATTRACTING THEM!!!!!

THAD IS A AROACE BUTCH. ok?❤️

Khan is also a butch. But in more of a loser way. Ok?❤️ this is lesbian drones. No men. Ok?❤️

doll is a food hoarder and has an ED

doll is a huge sweetheart past her exterior and is a gentle lover, platonically and romantically, but shes still incredibly awkward no matter how close someone gets with her DO NOT PLAY WITH ME. also fuck your stupid yandere headcanons certain side of the fandom

the reason doll has so many discarded mirrors is because of them breaking due to the absolute solver (probably canon idk. we were never told why ok)

doll and lizzy never dated, but they did have hookups (initiated by lizzy) and doll had a crush on her that eventually went away due to the v situation

if they were in mlp, workers would be earth ponies, disassemblys would be pegasi, solver ponies would be unicorns, and cyn/solver would be an alicorn (uzi is the exception to the alicorn rule)

n and v are queerplatonic partners

n prefers platonic relationships and romance is a complicated thing for him, he has a hard time distinquishing between romantic and platonic and is aroflux

lizzy would want to be a mom in her 30-40s, dont ask. just a feeling i have that im very passionate about

yeva is selective mute due to trauma from the labs, the only people who she vocally spoke to was doll, nori, and her husband. alice got to know what yeva sounded like but that was because yeva's development of select mutism started around the labs, alice and yeva were good friends at one point but with the way things at the labs went they ended things off on a sour note

alice and nori never liked each other, yeva was the voice of reason (not that they listened to her unless forced to). alice always thought nori was too careless and a brute, nori thought alice was a stuck up pushover who didnt know how to let loose

before going insane, alice was much kinder. she was your basic run of the mill cowboy, still had her countryisms and everything, but she was sort of the inbetween of yeva and nori? i guess. she was nice but still had a temper, she knew when to put her foot down and stand her guard but she also had trouble speaking out against the humans due to fear. trauma made her a very cautious and anxious person which plays a part in the "pushover" aspect nori was annoyed by, she has the solver but was never able to use it the same way yeva and nori could so she was almost thrown out by the humans multiple times. yeva is a part of the reason alice never got thrown out for being "ineffective" in research, but whether or not keeping alice around was the better option is subjective. it was common for the scientists to throw away the rejects and drones who proved unuseful in experiments, so alice stayed longer than she needed to because yeva was surprisingly a good persuader. although yeva also unintentionally played a part in driving alice insane by making sure she wasnt killed/scrapped lol

alice started going insane just a little before the labs imploded which is when the relationship dynamic between nori-yeva-alice started going downhill, this is when the alice we currently know started developing

nori was cyns favorite host during the lab days which plays a part in the reason why cyn ended up liking uzi so much

lizzy and thad are adoptive siblings, femme/butch siblings. ok? i also think they're really close. like the rest of the fandom, i headcanon teacher to be lizzys father Of Course. so that extends to teacher being thads father too, but i personally think neither lizzy or thad have a close or good relationship with teacher because... come on

j and v are exes. ok? i can imagine it started at the manor and was just a one sided crush on v's part that became a requited one after becoming disassemblys. i imagined j probably became more attracted to v after seeing her efficiency in battle, j's always been someone who's very closed off (just like v) so of course she would always keep v and n at an arms distance beforehand even during the manor... so i think v being good at her job being what lures j in to get closer to her makes the most sense, i feel like j would be too busy with tessa and worrying about god knows what else at the manor to notice anything with v at the time. butttttt since disassemblys only really had each other as company, they had more time to get to know each other (i dont think they were ever distant necessarily, but their relationship manor vs disassembly is very different to me). technically, they never officially broke up til episode 8 since j was "dead" since the pilot... but if they WERE to break up before episode 8, i'd personally say episode 2-3 because at that point in time they'd be on opposing teams and other factors just couldnt make it work

DOLL. HAS. ANGER. ISSUES. passed down from her mother. i feel like doll's personality aligns more with yeva's but her interests and small habits align with her father more, but changes from trauma overshadows a lot of the type of person she was beforehand

v is stronger than n but n is stronger than j, ok. ive seen so many people who hc n as stronger than v and i just cant see it At All im so sorry... i do think hes strong, i just cant see him stronger than v

alice's tail is a handmade prosthetic but i guess thats technically canon

love languages: n: gift giving/receiving, quality time v: words of affirmation, acts of service uzi: quality time, words of affirmation j: acts of service, quality time doll: physical touch, quality time lizzy: physical touch, gift giving/receiving thad: quality time, acts of service alice: physical touch, words of affirmation yeva: acts of service, words of affirmation nori: quality time, physical touch khan: quality time, gift giving/receiving tessa: physical touch, acts of service not doing everyone

thad is 100% a comic nerd and its something he and uzi bond over, uzi is more of a manga kid but it overlaps ok

nori totally played flash games when she was younger if she could have

tessa: i was born way after that i had an iphone 70 as a kid (something i read from a tessa blog that i think is really funny)

uzi is a larper and into dnd but i personally dont know anything about dnd i just know she would like it and rope v and n into it, they would probably all love it

doll has bpd, uzi has bpd, v has bpd, j has attachment issues, n has autism, khan has ocd (they secretly all have autism though)

j has a routine she follows everyday. what is that routine? im still figuring that out myself, but it was definitely disrupted due to the events of episode 8

doll is very emotionally devoid due to the effects of trauma kind of forcing her to be that way but i can imagine shes actually incredibly emotionally sensitive

khan tells dad jokes, n laughs at them

uzi exploits in games she plays and is smug about it, i think she uses it to troll rather than cause actual harm though cause shes just not that kind of drone

both n and j like board games, always have, it was probably one of the main things they bonded with during the manor days

tessa is the type of girl to hide her diary/journal under her bed instead of a drawer -- BRAIDON STUFF BECAUSE HE GETS HIS OWN SECTION CAUSE ALL OF THIS IS PRE-WRITTEN EXCEPT LIKE 2 THINGS: doll and braidon are adoptive siblings, braidons family adopted doll sometime around episode 5 and like Ok yeah this doesnt make any sense its something me and my sister came up with and ended up getting attached to

doll and braidon have a very rough relationship but he cares very deeply for her while doll is still learning to trust him, this whole adoption thing is really confusing we never went in full detail with it

He enjoys classical music. His name is usually misspelled as "Braiden" which makes him angry, he quickly corrects others with annoyance.

personality traits: nerd, logical, takes things literally, believes in spirituality, pragmatic, realist, extrovert, impulsive, reactive, talkative, stubborn, decisive, collected, calm, has a short temper, smart with technology, tech smart, honest, gullible, believes in higher power

tone: direct and to the point, doesn't spare any details, goes on long rants sometimes, sarcastic

likes: technology, ranting, talking, spirituality, literacy, reddit, tumblr, tidyness, proving himself right, phones, classical music

dislikes: stupid people --

putting this all the way down here because of the nsfw aspect:

if this were to ever happen or ever be a thing, workers would be the ones who “go into heat”. NOT. DISASSEMBLYS. disassemblys are loners who were programmed to focus on killing and only that, workers are the only ones who would need to “go into heat” because they are being killed off at rapid paces and need to reproduce as fast as possible to keep their species alive

ok thats all for this post. i definitely have other headcanons but i cant think of any others and it would be crazy if i tried to put every single headcanon i have ever thought of in 1 post

[mythtakens]

trying to use the search option on tumblr is like waiting for rain in this drought. useless and disappointing.

[pondslime]

gearing up to post x reader content in a new fandom should have been featured in rocky's grueling training montage

[clovercrafted-txt]

Title: Forwards (To Anywhere and Everywhere)

Fandom: Rain World Rating: Mature

Warnings: Major Character Death, Mild Gore, Canon-Typical Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Toxic Relationships, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm

Characters: No Significant Harassment, Chasing/Grey Wind, Seven Red Suns, The Hunter, The Rivuet

Summary:

There’s a life out there, outside of this box, this birdcage, a life Sig has longed to grasp in his hands, to tear from the cold death grip of those who made him, those who abandoned him, a life he longs to live so utterly joyously that his creators would probably drop dead and pass from the world just with the shock.

It’s a life not meant for him, for any of them. And he’s tried. He’s tried and he’s tired and he’s so over failing again and again, so done with asking endless questions, thundering towards a goal he has no belief in. Is it really so bad to want to leave? Is it really so awful that he wants to live?

~

No Signigicant Harassment finds himself stumbling through life with a very long list of regrets following him. But with a little help, a desire to give his creators a middle finger and a need to fix his mistakes, somehow he finds himself becoming the first of his kind to cast away their can and walk the world. What he does with that new found freedom is yet to be seen but he's sure he'll fuck it up somehow.

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Boy, I sure do "love" it when I search the tags for a specific character, and not only are the tags filled with the movie version of the character (fine, that's at least relevant) but also filled with random pictures of the actor in any role, because some people apparently tag pics of the actor with EVERY major role they've played.

And by "love it" I mean I'm going to start biting petty blocking people.

[kitchensinksurrealism]

the secret history literally rewired my brain but my god going through the tag is so annoying LIKE. THE SPAM

[javierduffy]

if i don’t draw javieran dancing when i get home from work i fear i may die

[thegingerwithcurlyfries]

if you post a fic to tumblr without using the read more i should personally be allowed to kill you.

[bamsara]

hey so just a reminder that this is not Instagram, there is no algorithm, and using a lot of tags on a post that don't really have anything to do with it just for more reach is considered spam and is reportable (and frowned upon) since it clogs up the tags

this includes tagging a fandom related post with a ship or characters from that same media that don't actually show up in the post. you do not need to tag every single character from the media in the post when they aren't actually included within it

[stromblessed]

jayvik shippers need to understand that non-jayvik shippers are annoyed with you not because of not shipping jayvik, but because there is no escaping you.

you clog every tag on every social media platform. want to look at caitvi? jayvik posts tagged as caitvi for some reason. want to look at viktor posts? jayvik. jayce posts? jayvik. want to look at mel posts? jayvik. anyone talking about mel and viktor in the same sentence is obviously secretly talking about jayvik. (and by the way here's why every mel scene is secretly about jayvik and every viktor scene is secretly about how all he thinks about is jayce and why mel is inferior and jayce was a good boy and was right all along). you dominate the discourse and don't give room for criticism of jayce or viktor's writing and don't tolerate other interpretations. every theme in the show was about jayvik all along.

on my main blog, i write fic and make arcane posts - not complaining, staying in my lane, making my own content for me and my friends - and my tags, comments, and replies are full of people talking about jayvik and asking about jayvik when the ship is not tagged or present in my posts or fics, and jayce usually isn't even tagged because i just don't have fun with him as a character right now, and all people want to talk about or comment on is him or jayvik. so here i am, venting on my sideblog

this is a curse i specifically bear and cannot escape because as a fan of the writing of these aforementioned characters SEPARATELY, any and every algorithm is gonna shovel piles of jayvik posts 10 feet deep right up against my front door, and everyone on tumblr is "tagging for visibility" or whatever so there's no escaping it here either. blocking and muting does not help because either jayvik isn't always tagged, or jayvik is tagged at random and i end up hiding swathes of posts i actually do want to see. and there is also the fact that i WOULD be into jayvik because i do think it's fun, i WOULD have more fun discussing jayce specifically as a character who i think is a very fun hot mess, if social media wasn't making me despise both with a burning passion right now, which sucks

the only haven is Ao3 because people are still slightly sane when tagging their fics - at least with the relationship tags. jayvik shippers you do need to stop tagging mel though along with any other character who doesn't affect the plot of your story and i am dead serious

this is a vent post but i am also declaring - the reason why people are frustrated and annoyed at jayvik at large, as a concept, even if you yourself are a chill shipper and you don't see why we all can't just get along, is because the collective has poisoned the well and it's not fun for other people to be in the same space as you right now. there are a lot of you - be glad of that and happy, not every fandom let alone ship gets this large and energetic a following - but don't be surprised that people like me are gonna be mad because. it is irritating. and you're everywhere. and unfortunately there's nothing that any one person can do about it. it is an environmental thing and you just. need to come to terms and be aware, idk

[bamboozledbird]

IGNITE: A Teen Wolf S1 AU // Chapter 1 / Next

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski, Reader (You) Pairing: Eventual Stiles x Reader, but man are we talking slow burn Word Count: 4.8k Warnings: Canon typical gore/violence, parental death (rip to your fake mom), descriptions of burning, depictions of depression (apathy, dissociation, 'numb little bug' vibes) Tags: Canon has been lovingly scrapped for parts, author is a chaotic bi and it shows, prolific overuse of the em dash, the slowest of burns i fear

Summary: You can always smell ash long after the fire is gone. Perhaps, that’s why you still can’t breathe without choking on the past. It’s been four years since your mom died. Four years since she burned alive. For years since you didn’t. You survived, but they must have buried your heart with her because you feel like something halfway between a ghost and a lamb for slaughter. 

You can’t wash the smell of hospital out of clothes, not really. Maybe, that’s why death and disease follows Stiles wherever he goes now. It’s been eight years since his mom died. Eight years since he didn’t. Eight years since he decided that he wouldn’t let anyone he loved die ever again. He survived, but Scott’s new-found abilities and the murky world they’ve been dragged into is making it pretty damn hard to keep his promise. 

Time never stops turning. The grief never dissipates. Children soldier on—but in a town where all the monsters under the bed are real and old family skeletons rattle in every closet, how long can two fragile, breakable humans survive? 

Maybe, the real question is how long will they want to? Chapter Summary: After your annual interrogation with Sheriff Stilinski, you meet his son who turns out to be very handy with jumper cables and incoherent babbling.

A/N: Does this look familiar? It should lmao. I gave into the peer pressure. All the messages and requests were too powerful. Here is a reader version of my ofc season 1 fic. Obviously some things have been removed to get rid of specific names/descriptions, so you want to read the full thing you can read the og version and check me out on ao3 (dork_knight)! For the sake of not clogging tags, I'll probably just do my reader version on tumblr and the full oc lore version on ao3 from now on. xx

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.

Before your mother’s death, you would have picked fire. Every single time. 

You never liked the cold; never really had to get used to it growing up in central California—but the crux of your argument, the twisted logic behind it all, was that most burn victims died from suffocation before they felt the flames. A small mercy, really, in the face of unspeakable tragedy. 

In the end, however, statistics were just numbers, your mother didn't die from smoke inhalation, and there was no mercy in burying a parent before you were old enough to have children of your own. Nothing ever ended poetically off the page. Death was just death, and it was always ugly. Someone should really tell that to Robert Frost, you mused, biting at a raw hangnail.

The medical examiner said the actual cause of death was pulmonary edema; at least, that was his best guess based on the state of the body. He didn’t say that she felt everything, her skin peeling back into her flesh, her flesh liquefying into fuel, her joints flexing into contorted pleas until the fire incinerated her last nerve ending. He didn’t have to; you connected those dots all on your own. You’d been twelve at the time, not an imbecile. 

“I’m sorry to drag you through this all again.”

You flitted your eyes away from the flickering lightbulb above Sheriff Stilinski’s head and met his gaze; it was nauseatingly sympathetic. Your responding shrug was a small, little thing—more like a twitch in practice, “Not your fault.” 

Your yearly visits to Sheriff Stilinski’s office were solely your father’s doing, even if no one wanted to admit it to your face. Most mayors would use their political power to get their child out of a police station, not into it, but perhaps he stopped being your dad somewhere between the funeral and now. 

“If you could start—”

“From the beginning,” you smoothed your thumb in small circles over the armrest of your chair, attentively tracing patterns into the polished wood, “I know.” This was, after all, the fourth anniversary of your first interrogation. You’d become somewhat of an expert at being a useless witness. You picked at your uneven cuticles before continuing, “Mom put me to bed around 10:00—which was kind of late for a school night, honestly, but she let me stay up to finish another chapter anyway.” The right corner of your mouth twitched for a brief moment, “Nancy Drew: Password to Larkspur Lane. I told her that forcing someone to go to sleep in the middle of a mystery was specifically forbidden in Geneva Protocol II.” Your mom had been far too indulgent of your lip on most occasions, but that night she didn’t smile at your snarky aside. She let you finish the chapter because she was too tired to argue; you could tell. At the time, you saw it as a victory. Now, it kept you up at night, the drooping lines of your mother’s mouth spilling over the pages of whatever book you were trying to read.

You bit down on your tongue when a stray splinter snagged against the soft pad of your thumb, “Dad was out of town, so it was just the two of us. Mom always put me to bed when Dad was gone; said it was the only way she could get to sleep. Had to make sure my window was locked.” You paused for a long moment: everything went dark after this. Your mother kissed the top of your head, murmured, ‘Love you,’ turned out the light, and then that was it. You woke up in the hospital, and your mom was dead. 

A bead of sweat dripped onto your top lip. The air in the Beacon Hills police station was, without fail, sticky with heat and body odor—and it wasn’t just the oppressive Californian sun. Even in the winter, a person could choke on the stifling warmth. Idly, you wondered if it was a matter of interrogatory tactics or budgetary constraints. 

“And then,” Sheriff Stilinski prompted gently, though you both knew how the story went from here. You had told it to him and a dozen other officials at least a hundred times in the last four years. 

You bit down on your thumbnail and winced when your teeth snagged on the tender nail bed, “And then nothing. I opened my eyes, and a nurse said that you found me on the front lawn.” 

“You don’t remember how you got outside?” 

You shook your head, staring past the Sheriff's shoulder. Large pieces of dust floated through the air, highlighted by the slivers of light trickling through the blinds. Suddenly, you had a newfound appreciation for the lack of fans in the room. 

Sheriff Stilinski cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over his jaw, “You don’t remember saying it was an angel?”

Blinking slowly, you looked at the grim line of the Sheriff’s mouth and gripped your knees tightly, digging your fingers into fragile skin until your wrist cracked, “I should, right? I was twelve. I should remember something—that’s what everyone thinks. That’s what my dad thinks.” Your eyelids fluttered to a tight close, and your voice went so quiet you could barely be heard over the hum of the copier outside the door, “He thinks it was me. That’s why he makes you question me every year.” Copper flooded your mouth as the soft lining of your cheek split under the brunt of your teeth, “He thinks you’ll finally figure out how I did it.” 

You were scared to open your eyes as the silence stretched between the two of you. You’d danced around the subject before, hinted and spun around the heart of it, but you’d never truly discussed how it looked from the outside. Sheriff Stilinski had been kind enough to give you a few different excuses over the years: trauma, head injury, oxygen deprivation, just plain ol’ grief—but whatever caused your temporary amnesia wasn’t so conveniently explained. In fact, currently, you had no explanation at all. When you finally peeked through your lashes, clumped together with frustrated tears, you couldn’t quite figure out what expression the Sheriff was making. He leaned back in his desk chair and frowned, “I’m sure he doesn’t—”

“He does,” you cut him off. Your eyes went flinty, irises darkening to something far more ashen with the resolve of your anger. You never had any trouble reading your father’s face; the disgust was thinly-veiled between the flickers of fear. 

Sheriff Stilinksi leaned forward so that you had no choice but to look him in the eyes. They were kind—more tired than usual, but still kind. They always were. That was one thing you remembered from that day, waking up in the hospital to Sheriff Stilinski’s kind, watery blue eyes, just before the entire world fell apart. His voice was gentle, but firm, when he finally spoke, “I don’t.” 

You nodded numbly and pulled at a fraying string on the hem of your denim skirt until the thread snapped. 

“I mean it, kid. They couldn’t identify the source of the fire. They couldn’t even find an origin point; no twelve-year-old could pull that off.”

You chewed on your bottom lip, “Could anyone?”

Sheriff Stilinski’s brow furrowed, and his mouth screwed up into a crooked line, like he was chewing on his words and deciding if he should swallow them or spit them out. “I wish I had all the answers for you. I really do. Not knowing, it’s worse than any truth.”

You blinked up at him for a moment, once again taken aback by his raw sincerity, and swallowed hard. He wasn’t the one who was supposed to have the answers; he was the one who was supposed to ask the questions. There was one failure in his muggy office, and it wasn’t the Sheriff. “It’s okay,” you said quietly. “Not your fault.”

He looked like he wanted to argue the point, but whatever he wanted to say was interrupted by the sharp ringing of the phone on his desk. “I have to take this, but if you remember something, or if you just need to talk—”

“My dad spends a small fortune on a psychiatrist and a behavioral therapist for that,” you stood up quickly, shouldering your bag. You forced the corners of your mouth into a small smile, tight at the edges like a sheet that had been stretched too thin, “But thank you. For everything.” 

The Sheriff’s gaze darted to a framed photo on his desk. You had seen it before, on one of your many visits to his office. It was of a boy—his son, you assumed—he looked like he was around five or six at the time. He was grinning, wide enough to show off his missing incisors, and his fingers and wrist were stained cotton-candy blue from a melting popsicle. You must’ve been that happy once, right? In the beginning, everyone was unencumbered by the weight of imminent mortality. Maybe that’s what Sheriff Stilinski was thinking, too. He looked away from the photo and gave you a small smile, “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

You gave a half-hearted wave before wrapping your fingers around the strap of your backpack and walking to the parking lot. 

Outside, the sky was grim, a mocking reflection of the dour expression on your face. The spite in your eyes hardened when big, fat raindrops splattered against the apples of your cheeks. For a moment, you just stood there, glaring at the rain and cursing the cosmos for their utterly unamusing sense of humor.

A jeep pulled into the parking lot, and the squealing engine startled you back into reality. The search for your car keys was, of course, a considerable endeavor. Nothing could be easy. Not here. Not today. Not ever, you thought. A bit melodramatic maybe, but the weather was certainly ripe for a bit of self-pity.

You stacked your textbooks and binders onto the hood of your sedan, haphazardly throwing your jacket on top of the pile to protect your painstakingly penned Kafka essay from the rain. By the time your fingertips brushed against the cool metal of your car keys, your hair was damp and curling at the ends. 

The momentary relief was short-lived when you pressed the unlock button five times and the accompanying beep didn’t sound, not even once. For an absurdly long minute, all you could do was rest your forehead against the driver’s side window, breathing heavily until condensation gathered next to your mouth and the drizzle speckled dots onto the sleeves of your thin cotton shirt.

“If you’re trying to charge the battery through osmosis, it’d probably be more effective to smash your head against the hood.”

You jumped, and then flinched again when your keys clattered against the ground. You caught a glimpse of the phantom speaker in the side-view mirror; bizarrely, he looked just as surprised as you felt. You turned around, trepidatiously���objects may be closer than they appear n’all—and tried to swallow your rapidly rising heart. 

“Sorry,” the boy pulled the hood of his sweatshirt down and had the decency to look contrite, “big mouth.” He rubbed a hand over his chapped lips. “It’s a real problem. It’s so big, actually, that my foot just slides right in there like…all the time,” he gestured animatedly with a flat hand, a quick sliding motion, like a fish through water.

You blinked at him, slowly, and bent down to reach for your keys, “Might wanna see someone about that. Sounds unsanitary.”

“Eh, it’s hardly the worst thing I’ve put in my mouth,” he said, eyes widening into horrified round circles the second he stopped talking. A faint flush creeped up his neck to his ears, and your heart dropped back into your chest. Slashers and ax murderers didn’t blush. Probably. You hadn’t ever met one, but it seemed like sound logic.

“Choking hazard,” you hummed, leaning back against your car. Your fingers traced a small dent in the door, the cause long forgotten, “It’s definitely still a choking hazard.”

The boy grinned before fixing his expression into something on the cusp of severity, “I’m about 95.7% sure that anything bigger than a fist is completely mouth-safe.” He held up his fist and nodded sharply, “Make that 98.3% sure.”

“98.3?” your brow arched.

“Maybe even 98.9.” 

The buzz of a lamp post hummed above your heads as you stared at each other with little smirks until the quiet made you sink your teeth into your bottom lip and big-mouth drum his fingers against his forearm. 

“So,” his sneakers squeaked against the slick asphalt as he shifted his weight, “you need a jump?”

You pursed your lips and ran your eyes over the front of your car, “I might give osmosis another shot. 30 seconds is hardly a fair trial.”

“Of course,” he hummed, “you gotta be fair.”

“We are in front of a police station.”

“Well,” he scratched his cheek, “it’s not a courthouse.”

“Technicality.” You were slightly horrified when you finally noticed that you were smiling. The sensation felt like it had escaped straight out of the uncanny valley and latched onto your face like a parasite in need of a host. It only took two weeks for muscles to atrophy; years must have completely decimated the fibers in your cheeks. “I guess I could use a jump. If your offer was an offer and not a hypothetical.” 

“Smart choice.” The boy rapped his knuckles against the hood of your car and said, “Steel’s probably pretty low on the permeability scale.”

“As opposed to a skull.”

He snorted and then nodded towards the large lump of books and papers covered by your freshly dampened jean jacket, “You should probably move your stuff. Y’know, ‘cause of the very un-permeable battery.”

“There’s that,” you sighed and started stuffing your things back into your backpack, shaking it violently until your notebook finally slid past your chemistry textbook, “and flunking English isn’t high on my list of things to do this weekend.”

His gaze flickered back and forth, rapidly cataloging every corner and crevice of your face. You tilted your head, brows pinched, and stared back at him with your arms crossed tightly over your chest. His eyes, you noticed, became a peculiar shade of brown in the yellow glow of the setting sun and the fluorescent light of the lamppost. More like honey, you realized, more like honey than irises. Something finally clicked behind them. "You,” he pointed aggressively, “you go to Beacon Hills.”

You pushed his finger away from your face with your own, “Safe bet, considering there’s exactly one option for the next 2,000 square miles.”

“You’re kind of a smartass, you know that,” he muttered. He struggled with the trunk of the jeep parked next to your car, cursing under his breath until he finally wrenched it open with an almost guttural grunt.

Your lips parted briefly, and then you grinned drolly. It was refreshing, not being treated like some fragile little creature who would buckle in the knees—or possibly set something on fire—at the slightest confrontation. “Kind of?”

“Total.” He nodded decisively before sticking his head and torso into the depths of his trunk. “Completely, entirely, and wholly a smartass.” There were various clanging sounds until he re-emerged with a pair of jumper cables, “Never noticed that in class. You don’t really…say anything.”

You bit back the snark poised on the tip of your tongue. When people looked at you, the only thing they saw was the worst thing that had ever happened to you. You were the daughter of the woman who burned to death on Cedar Street; your mom died, and you were there. It seemed like that was all you would ever be in Beacon Hills. 

In the grand scheme of things, it was better to be no one. 

High school had been your chance to slip into social obscurity—more kids, more drama, less discussion of homicide by arson—so you took it, wholeheartedly. You kept to the corners of classrooms, away from extracurriculars, and your mouth resolutely shut. 

“I try to exclusively bring the smart and leave the ass at home,” you finally replied.

The boy’s eyes drifted downwards for a moment, and his voice did a funny, squeaky thing when he said, “I should give that a go sometime.”

“10/10 would recommend. No one bugs you—and teachers never throw erasers at your face.”

“So you do remember me,” he grinned a little and rolled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt before unlatching the jeep’s hood and propping it open.

Slanting your head, you watched his profile. There were moles scattered across his cheek and neck, and his angular jaw clenched as he struggled with the knotted cords in his willowy fingers. “Vaguely,” you said faintly. It was coming back to you in pieces. That was life after twelve for you: bits and pieces. Everything was made up of the disquieting moments when you surfaced from the haze and into the present. It should’ve felt like a lungful of air, but it didn’t. It always felt like choking. 

He wiped his grease-smudged hand on his jeans and then extended it towards you, “Stiles.”

You took his hand, despite the strange formality, and shook it—mainly because of the black streaks staining his pants. “Y/N.”

His fingers twitched a few times when he connected the clamp to the coordinating battery terminal, and your eyes widened. You held your breath in your sternum until you registered that he hadn’t been electrocuted. He was just naturally tweaky, you concluded. It was either that, or he had jumped one-too-many engines in the last 24 hours…unless it was hidden option C, and he was actually tweaking. Unlikely, given he was on his way into a building teeming with cops, but far stranger things had happened in Beacon Hills.  

You sighed a little as you listened to the rain patter against the asphalt and the roof of your car, rubbing your palms over your arms until the goosebumps prickling along your biceps receded into your skin. Stiles looked back at you again, and his mouth wormed its way into a little frown. His head disappeared into his trunk, and after a moment a lumpy maroon mass hurtled towards your face. You caught it before it could smack into your nose, and you clutched at the soft material until you realized that the projectile missile was actually just a sweatshirt. 

Stiles was staring at you when you looked up from your hands. A small, unsure…something squirmed over his face, and you felt a little stupid, just standing there, hoodie limp in your arms. It happened a lot—more than it should after so many years. The invisible quicksand materialized in the strangest, most insignificant moments. You blinked, completely brainless, at simple questions, stared aimlessly into your closet until your second alarm startled you into snatching the first shirt you came across—clasped at a stranger’s hoodie until the rainwater pooled on your lashes dripped into your eyes.

Robotically, you thrust your arms through the sleeves and tugged it over your head, “Thanks.” The sweet scent of grass clung to the fabric, and there was something earthier underneath it, something like evergreen. You smiled slightly, combing your baby hairs behind your ears, “I guess I forgive you for attempting to blind me in the process.”

Stiles’s shoulders unwound as he scoffed, “That was an excellent throw. First-line material, honestly.”

You looked at him and tilted your head, eyebrows crawling towards your hairline, and Stiles sighed loudly, “Okay, so I’m not an ‘athlete’ or whatever—but I’m working on it. You’ll see—you’ll all see.”

You hummed softly, unconvinced but grateful enough to not comment further. Another bout of silence fell between you, but it wasn’t so restless this time—even after Stiles torpedoed his body through his passenger seat. He fought with his keys for a while until the correct one slid into the ignition. 

The jeep’s engine hummed pleasantly in the background as you let out a soft sigh, dropping your head back against your car window. The rain had stopped somewhere between trying to unlock your car and now, but you couldn’t quite recall when. The chill wasn’t so bad, you realized, without your foul mood casting a shadow over your head.

Stiles landed back on his feet and leaned against the jeep. You could feel his gaze on you again. A tickling sensation trailed down your spine as you fiddled with your keychain. You took a step backwards and bit your bottom lip, “I should probably try start my car…y’know, before you throw something else at my face.’”

He nodded, taking a step towards his jeep, “Solid plan. A tire iron was next.”

You slid into your car and stared at the steering wheel, forgetting to laugh at his joke. You wrapped your fingers around 10 and 2 and silently called upon every deity you’d ever heard of to end your suffering. Stiles seemed nice enough, but you seriously doubted your smalltalk capabilities were up-to ‘ride home’ standards. Perhaps, you should revisit your resounding dedication to atheism, you thought, as the engine sputtered in protest a few times and then came back to life. 

Stiles flashed two thumbs up through the window. The smile on his face was positively goofy, but his dismount from the jeep was somehow even goofier. He stumbled over his large feet a few times before regaining stability. You bit back a smile when he shot you another thumbs up, this time through the dash as he removed the jumper cables from your car’s battery.

He wiped his hands off on his jeans again; at this point, you were convinced that they were beyond saving, but Stiles didn’t seem concerned. He tapped against your window before stepping around the open door, “You should probably let it run for a while. Take the scenic route home; enjoy all the Beacon Hills hotspots open past 8:00 pm on a weeknight. I personally recommend the Rite Aid or Walmart.”

You snorted, “Maybe I’ll swing by the Preserve. I hear the woods are especially beautiful in the foreboding darkness.”

“Don’t.” Serious was an odd look on Stiles’s face. You decided that you much preferred the goofy grin. “Don’t go anywhere near the Preserve. It’s officially cordoned off—totally locked down, quarantine-zone-central. Something about flesh-eating, parasitic plant life.”

“As completely real and unobtrusive as that sounds,” you drawled, “don’t worry about it. Literally every single person in town knows about the body they found in the woods.” It was bound to happen, small town and all—and ‘woman dies in deadly animal attack’ was the most interesting thing that had happened in Beacon Hills since the intersection got a Target two years ago. “I’ve seen every installment of Friday the 13th and The Blair Witch Project. If I’m going to be murdered, I refuse to also be humiliated by a cliché C.O.D.” 

The manic expression on his face softened to a relieved smile and then again to a little smirk, “So what’s a certified fresh murder, then? Not that I doubt the depths of human depravity, but I think society killed off originality a few centuries ago.”

You thought back to a house fire with no origin, accelerant, or discernible cause. Apparently, not. “You know what they say,” you sighed, “life finds a way.”

Stiles tilted his head, “And death.”

“And death,” you agreed, staring at a small chip in your windshield. The cracks had just begun to spiderweb out from the pit. 

Stiles looked like he wanted to say something, and he looked so much like the Sheriff with his face twisted around thoughtful contemplation that you couldn’t believe it had taken you this long to make the connection. The boy in the photo had grown up. How unfortunate for him. Stiles swallowed whatever it was that was lingering on his tongue and shut your door. He leaned his elbow against the window frame and cocked his hand in a stiff little wave, “Seeya at school. I’ll bring something fun for target practice—maybe grapes. You like grapes? Don’t answer that—I’ll surprise you.”

You put your car in drive once Stiles was safely a few feet from the wheels and gave him a dry smile, “The anticipation is killing me.”

What a scary place to be, you thought as you watched Stiles disappear in your rearview mirror. Anticipation. Hope. Life. You were chronically good at surviving; cockroached your way out of every horrible thing life squashed you with. Lately, all you could do was cling to your heartbeat and the warmth of your skin, until you were barely more than roadkill. A walking carcass was a far cry from living, but death would not stop for you, so you stopped looking for him. You kept treading water, took your pills, stopped existing—you were a lot like Schrödinger’s cat that way: too stubborn to live, too stubborn to die. You didn’t know what to do if someone unsealed the box and forced you to choose. That was the trouble with possibility; it required far too much uncertainty.

Your dad’s SUV was parked in the garage when you finally pulled into your circle driveway. It was a rare sight; your dead battery had disrupted your usual routine. You were supposed to be safely tucked away in your room after an early dinner—take-out usually, sometimes a quesadilla if you were feeling exceptionally inspired—by the time your dad got home from work. It was dysfunctional in every sense of the word, but it was the only way you could function in the same space. 

He used to stare at you from the other end of the dinner table: not eating, not speaking. The only way you knew he was alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. After a while, he moved dinner to his office. ‘Working dinner,’ he’d say in passing, ‘budgets are due.’ Eventually, he stopped coming home altogether. It was better that way, you thought. You loved each other better from afar, where the power of nostalgia could cloud all the present unpleasantries. You wondered what he saw when he looked at you now. You wondered, and you desperately didn’t want to find out.  

You shouldered your backpack and made sure your car lights were off twice before quietly creeping into the mudroom. You could hear the buzz of the microwave as you toed off your sneakers and tried to discern the smell emanating from the kitchen. Something with garlic and tomato. Bona Vita, probably. Your dad loved their al pomodoro. 

You tried to make yourself as small as possible as you skulked into the kitchen, shoulders hunched to your ears and grip tight around the strap of your backpack. Your dad’s back was to you; you could see the wrinkles in his collar from where he tugged at it when he was agitated. He stopped stirring his pasta once you reached the island. 

“Did…” your dad trailed off for a moment, still facing the kitchen counter, “did everything go alright with the Sheriff?” 

You shrugged even though he couldn’t see you, “I guess.”

“It’s just,” he rubbed at his jaw and looked down towards the oven, “it’s almost eight. I was wondering…worrying.”

He still wasn’t looking at you. You stared at the back of his head and sucked your bottom lip between your teeth. Look at me. Your brows pinched, and your back molars ground together. Look at me. 

“I called him. Sheriff Stilinski. He said that you didn’t speak for long.”

“Didn’t have anything new to say,” you shoved your hands into hoodie pockets, realizing belatedly that you forgot to give Stiles his sweatshirt back. Another problem for another time. 

“That’s not what I—” your dad grasped the lip of the counter and hung his head like it suddenly weighed too much for his spine, “I was wondering what happened to you.” 

“Oh,” you shifted your weight onto your other foot, “dead battery. I think it was the door light.”

Your dad nodded a little, “Do you need someone to pick up your car?”

“Got a jump from a friend.” Not a friend, not really, but you supposed it was the closest you’d come to one in the last four years. That was just a little too sad to say out loud. 

“Good.” He nodded again, “Good.” 

You nodded because it seemed like the only thing to do and slipped towards the hallway. You’d taken no less than five steps out of the kitchen when your dad said, “You could call me. Next time, you could call me.”

Maybe. Maybe you could if he would look at you.